So I got pick pocketed today :(. Which brings me to the topic of the high and lows of this trip. Many times during this trip have been absolutely GREAT but at the same time many have been totally HORRIBLE hahaha and there have been few times that were just ‘okay.’ For instance, just the other day I almost had a heart attack when I found out that I had gotten an invoice mailed to my house for the car repairs I had in Paris for $3000…but luckily I sorted that whole situation out with the rental company. And then today…here I was, sitting near the beautiful Spanish steps feeling like a million bucks and then got up to walk for dinner. As I was eating dinner, I noticed that my pocket wasn’t quite as heavy as it should’ve been! Sadly I was a victim of the very ‘common’ pick pocketing that goes on here in Rome. Many many people had told me their own horror stories about Rome before this trip had started and now I have a story to tell myself (though I wouldn’t call it a horror story). Unfortunately one of the items that were stolen was my cell phone which really sucks BUT I still have my passport and other important documents so it definitely could have been worse. When I did realize what had happened I traced my steps back and ran around the Spanish steps like a chicken with its head cut off. But with no avail -- I did not find my phone anywhere. I decided to call my phone and realized that it had been turned off (which I never do!) so definitely someone had it and did not want me to find them. I called the cell phone company and after waiting on hold for a long LONG time, had my phone suspended. I did a little more searching, hoping I’d find someone playing around with my phone or something but did not see anyone so yeah things really got sour for me today. And to make things better it started raining REALLY HARD. It seems as though this kind of stuff always happens to me – whenever I’m on cloud nine feeling sooooooooo great I always seem to get a not to nice push back to reality. But I guess that’s just life and hey, life goes on.
Anyways of days this had to happen on my last day of the trip – why couldn’t it have happened yesterday or the day before? Why do I have to end my trip like this! I’m not crying or anything but it still upsets me that of all days I got pick pocketed today.
Well my flight is still tomorrow so I am still happy about that I guess.
Sunday, December 19, 2004
Best/Worst Lists
Well now that things are pretty much wrapping up, here's a list of best/worst things I've seen in Europe over the last 3 months --- if there are other things any of you can think of let me know hahaha:
Most expensive city: London, Rome
Most expensive country: Switzerland
Cheapest City: Lisbon Portugal
Cheapest Country: Portugal, Czech Republic
Best looking girls: Spain, France, UK (surprisingly), Italy
Best looking guys: who cares hahaha!
Best country for food: without a doubt Italy
Sleaziest city: Surprise surprise - Amsterdam hahahaha! (Madrid is in a distant second though, which was a surprise)
Nicest scenery: Anywhere in Switzerland!
Best nightlife: Spain
Nicest city: Paris
Nicest country: Italy
City with the most diversity: London
Most disliked city: Milan, Birmingham, Prague
Worst public transportation: Dublin
Best radio station: Radio 1, UK
Best country radio stations: Spain, France, UK, Italy
Favourite Hotel: Sheraton in Bilbao,Munich; Crowne Plazas in Dublin, Prague
City I had the most fun in: London, Barcelona, Nice, Edinburgh, Vienna
Best beaches: Spain
Place I wish I had stayed a little longer: Interlaken, Switzerland (I wanted to take the train up to the Jungfrau mountains and do some of the eXtreme sports they have there) and Venice!
Place I wish I had visited: Western part of Ireland (Cliffs of Moher and other places for NICE scenery!)
Most frequently watched TV channel: CNN (I'm not too crazy about CNN but it's everywhere), MTV Europe is great though!
Scariest place to drive: Switzerland, everywhere! and some of the hilly barren mountainous regions in Spain
Most aggressive drivers: Italy -- these guys don't know how to stay in their lanes!
Nicest place to drive for scenery: Switzerland -- it might be scary but it was nice!
Funnest place to drive: The UK, driving on the left side was soooo much fun! And the crazy (unlimited speed!) Autobahn highways of Germany!!!
Hardest place to communicate: Germany
Nicest people: BY far Switzerland!!!
Meanist people: I'm leaning towards the people in Dublin, but I may have just ran into a few sour apples there.
Most annoying place to get around: London - my subway line kept having delays!
Safest city: Pretty much all of them, I had no problem walking around at night on my own!
Hardest place to move our luggage: Madrid, Amsterdam, and luckily I booked a hotel outside of Venice!
Best dressed people: France, Italy
Favourite Cities: London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Venice, Brussels, Vienna, Barcelona
Most expensive city: London, Rome
Most expensive country: Switzerland
Cheapest City: Lisbon Portugal
Cheapest Country: Portugal, Czech Republic
Best looking girls: Spain, France, UK (surprisingly), Italy
Best looking guys: who cares hahaha!
Best country for food: without a doubt Italy
Sleaziest city: Surprise surprise - Amsterdam hahahaha! (Madrid is in a distant second though, which was a surprise)
Nicest scenery: Anywhere in Switzerland!
Best nightlife: Spain
Nicest city: Paris
Nicest country: Italy
City with the most diversity: London
Most disliked city: Milan, Birmingham, Prague
Worst public transportation: Dublin
Best radio station: Radio 1, UK
Best country radio stations: Spain, France, UK, Italy
Favourite Hotel: Sheraton in Bilbao,Munich; Crowne Plazas in Dublin, Prague
City I had the most fun in: London, Barcelona, Nice, Edinburgh, Vienna
Best beaches: Spain
Place I wish I had stayed a little longer: Interlaken, Switzerland (I wanted to take the train up to the Jungfrau mountains and do some of the eXtreme sports they have there) and Venice!
Place I wish I had visited: Western part of Ireland (Cliffs of Moher and other places for NICE scenery!)
Most frequently watched TV channel: CNN (I'm not too crazy about CNN but it's everywhere), MTV Europe is great though!
Scariest place to drive: Switzerland, everywhere! and some of the hilly barren mountainous regions in Spain
Most aggressive drivers: Italy -- these guys don't know how to stay in their lanes!
Nicest place to drive for scenery: Switzerland -- it might be scary but it was nice!
Funnest place to drive: The UK, driving on the left side was soooo much fun! And the crazy (unlimited speed!) Autobahn highways of Germany!!!
Hardest place to communicate: Germany
Nicest people: BY far Switzerland!!!
Meanist people: I'm leaning towards the people in Dublin, but I may have just ran into a few sour apples there.
Most annoying place to get around: London - my subway line kept having delays!
Safest city: Pretty much all of them, I had no problem walking around at night on my own!
Hardest place to move our luggage: Madrid, Amsterdam, and luckily I booked a hotel outside of Venice!
Best dressed people: France, Italy
Favourite Cities: London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Venice, Brussels, Vienna, Barcelona
Friday, December 17, 2004
Getting packed and ready!
Well, I’m officially no longer in Europe on ‘work’ hahahaha. We dropped off most of our equipment to be shipped to Toronto today and I’m planning on somehow bringing the rest into my luggage hehehe…still not too sure how I’m going to manage to bring all the things I’ve bought back – cause I’ve bought so much! Anyways I’m sure I’ll be able to figure something out.
Anyways after sorting out all the shipping stuff I headed to Rome to see the city again and I have to say even after visiting 50 other cities over the last 90 days, Rome is still quite breathtaking. I went by many of the main attractions I had visited in September again like the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Piazza Venezia, and the Coliseum and all of them still were absolutely amazing to see. It was also very entertaining getting driven by the hotel’s shuttle bus, cause the driver had a slight case of road rage hahaha. Which reminds me if you ever drive in Italy be warned – Italian people seem to have problems staying in their lanes when driving, which can take a lot of getting used to hehehe Anyways yeah so I went around Rome for quite some time and then headed back to the hotel because I was still pretty tired from the last few days. Anywho tomorrow I have to go shopping for another suit case and will hopefully begin packing!
Only 2 more days!
Anyways after sorting out all the shipping stuff I headed to Rome to see the city again and I have to say even after visiting 50 other cities over the last 90 days, Rome is still quite breathtaking. I went by many of the main attractions I had visited in September again like the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Piazza Venezia, and the Coliseum and all of them still were absolutely amazing to see. It was also very entertaining getting driven by the hotel’s shuttle bus, cause the driver had a slight case of road rage hahaha. Which reminds me if you ever drive in Italy be warned – Italian people seem to have problems staying in their lanes when driving, which can take a lot of getting used to hehehe Anyways yeah so I went around Rome for quite some time and then headed back to the hotel because I was still pretty tired from the last few days. Anywho tomorrow I have to go shopping for another suit case and will hopefully begin packing!
Only 2 more days!
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Feeling at ‘home’ in Rome
So after another gruelling (7 hours!) drive we eventually made it to Rome and met up with Dario for a really nice dinner. We talked and ate a really good meal for quite a while and that was pretty much the day hahaha. By the time we got back to the hotel it was very late and seeing how I’ve driven nearly 1200 km in the last 2 days, I decided to try and get a good night’s rest.
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
The beauty that is Venice!
Our drive to Venice was very interesting…we went from snow covered areas in Austria/Germany in –5 degrees weather to Italy where it was like +15 degrees! That just goes to show you just how far the drive was! Anyways Venice is an absolutely captivating city to say the least! It is a shame that I was only to spend one day here…though it’s probably a good thing for my wallet! I went on another one of my wonderful shopping sprees here and I am very glad that I did hahaha. Venice is very famous for its glass and I bought a bunch of really cool little showpieces made of Murano glass (which is considered very high quality Venetian glass). Anyways I found that the best way to truly enjoy the aura of Venice was not to plan and visit only specific ‘tourist attractions’ but to stroll through the beautiful narrow (walking only!) streets through out the whole city, taking the water bus as needed. So I didn’t go to many of the main attractions close up, with the exception of Piazza de San Marco (which is the main attraction in Venice)…but instead I walked through a lot of the city pretty randomly and shopped around on the way. I did though visit some of Venice’s more famous cathedral/churches though and they were again absolutely captivating. So yeah that was pretty much the day. I was warned by many of how expense things are in Venice (including food!) but I was suckered into the surreal atmosphere of Venice and ended up spending more than I had hoped to. But again I have not regrets hahaha. Anyways tomorrow we head for Rome.
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